Ozon and a 1930s comedy on the triumph of sisterhood (score 7)- Corriere.it

Looking forward to the release of his penultimate film Petra von Kantremake of Fassbinder’s masterpiece, announced in mid-May, the latest work by François Ozon arrives (in cinemas from Tuesday), Mon Crime (to which the Italian distribution has added a pleonastic subtitle: I’m the culprit), new demonstration of the variety and unpredictability of this director who seems to enjoy surprising the audience by changing genre and subject every time, pursuing realism or theatrics, drama or comedy. To cite only his latest evidence: pedophilia ecclesiastical into Thank God, adolescent homosexuality in Summer ’85L’help at the end of life in everything went welli power relations hidden behind the amorous passions in Petra von Kant and now the temptations of celebrity (and more) with this one Mon Crime.

It is hard to find a single and coherent inspiration in the twenty or more feature films shot in the director’s career, starting with Regard the Wed, a debut that dates back to 1997. There is rather the desire to never repeat oneself, the very artisanal taste of the well-made product, the attention to detail that stands out, for example, in the attention to small roles for which he knows how to use faces that are more or less meet where you least expect it. Even if then some underground line one can well find, like the reflection on the female role that runs through the three films based on theatrical texts: lo failure of the patriarchy in 8 women and a mysterythe revenge of the matriarchy in Potiche – The beautiful figurine and now, right in Mon CrimeThe triumph of sisterhood.

Just to say sure red threads are not so hidden and that Ozon also goes looking for them if he decides, for this latest direction, to resurrect a comedy from 1934. Yes, because the inspiration for the film comes from theatrical text by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil Mon Crime!already brought to the screen twice: first in 1937 with Carole Lombard (The lying wifedirected by Wesley Ruggles) and the second, which came decidedly less well in 1946 with Betty Hutton (Blonde between barsdirected by John Berry). What was so interesting about this play? The idea that the protagonist, accused of a murder that she declares she has not committed, ends up blatantly accusing herself of that murder right during the trial, because in this way it becomes a kind of feminist heroine conquering that popularity which he had searched in vain before.

Naturally Ozon (who signs the screenplay together with Philippe Piazzo) makes many changes to the original theatrical text: he transforms the protagonist into a writer and makes her become a novice actresswhile the lawyer who defends her in court and pushes her to accuse herself changes sex and becomes a husband the friend with which it shares the attic. Maintaining the Thirties setting (reconstructed with extraordinary skill and taste by Jean Rabasse) also in function of the pleasure of playing with the time lag between the problems that pice raises – the role of women, the allure of popularity, male chauvinism – and our contemporary sensibility.

Mixing famous faces with others who will surely become famous — Madeleine, the killer actress, the excellent one Nadia Tereszkiewicz; Pauline, his lawyer friend, Rebecca Marder; the buffoonish investigating judge Fabrice Luchini; the avid silent diva an explosive Isabelle Hupper; Madeleine’s future son-in-law André Dussollier; slimy homebuilder Dany Boon — Ozon constructs an admittedly outdated narrative mechanism e blatantly theatrical which works perfectly. Difficult to look for some likelihood or hope for identification. The pleasure of
caricature seems the polar star of all the interpreters (starting with Olivier Broche, Luchini’s babbling assistant), but really the excess number to please the film, to give it that surprisingly unexpected tone that knows how to deal with a smile (and a little welcome irony) on issues and situations that since 1934 don’t seem to have changed much.